Protesters hold a rally in front of a nuclear power station in Yeonggwang on Nov. 15 to call on the authorities to ensure their safety. The reactors were shut down early November, after a discovery that some of their parts had fake quality certificates.

South Korea is bracing for more power shortages as it heads into winter, with the country’s main power supplier running with two nuclear reactors offline in the wake of a safety scandal–a handicap that has exacerbated the country’s struggle to meet rising demand for electricity as temperatures plunge.

The government announced a gameplan Friday to better cope with looming shortages, including procuring extra power supply from private power generators, keeping indoor temperatures at or below 20 degrees at 65,000 energy-guzzling facilities, and restarting the reactors before the end of winter.

At the heart of the problem is South Korea’s lack of excess power generating capacity.

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Australia and Japan have the ability to produce an extra 35% and 28% of power supply, respectively, at peak demand periods, compared with just 7% in South Korea, said Park Sung-Taek, director of the electric power division at the Ministry of Knowledge Economy, which handles energy policy.

And like Australia and Japan, South Korea is unable to “borrow” power supply from a neighboring country, he noted.

The ministry is seeking to prevent the country from having to resort to rolling blackouts as it had to do in September last year (then because of unseasonably high temperatures), leading to brief chaotic episodes in some parts of the country such as traffic signals going out of action.

Earlier this month South Korea suspended operations at two nuclear reactors after some parts were found to have fake safety certificates. The No. 5 and No. 6 reactors at the Younggwang nuclear-power plant in the southeast of the country will be shut until at least the end of this year.

Nuclear-power plants account for around a quarter of South Korea’s power generation facilities by potential output.